For a Creature of the Sea
by ErynnElizabeth
Summary: The heart of a sea creature is not known to be the most open and loving; especially not when those hearts belong to awkward teenagers with a passion for getting into trouble. Prince Riku was sick of the rules that ensnare him, and the witch's apprentice, Sora, was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Merman AU. Soriku.


"Come on, your highness!" Riku swam forward, trying hard to keep his red-headed friend in sight; a glimpse of a fin, the light reflecting off a scale, anything to help him catch the girl, "wait until I tell Xion how slow you've gotten, Prince Riku. She'll probably be embarrassed enough for the both of you."

"Kairi, wait! We're supposed to go together," his tail swept feverously along the ocean floor as he struggled to keep up. The day had worn heavy on him, and Kairi, having only just left the castle, was filled with her usual vigor, "the currents are strong out here, Princess, please come back before you get hurt."

"Don't worry so much, I'm taking you to see the cave I found, and it's this way," Kairi flashed him a grin and ducked behind a row of weathered boulders, keeping as low to the ground as she could she allowed her fingers to skim over the various shells and brightly colored pebbles, "it's got lots of pretty shells that Xion might like, so we're going to collect some for her."

"What's wrong with the shells near the castle? Xion cares just as much for those as she would anything else we brought her. And even if you're so hell bent on this, couldn't we at least take a safer path? People get hurt here all the time you know," he dodged a shell that came whizzing past his head, "Kairi," another clipped his ear, "are you kidding me right now?"

He heard Kairi's laughter, a pretty sound like bells chiming in the surface world, before the pink hue of her tail was obstructed again by the boulders and reefs she was weaving her way through with practiced grace. With an annoyed sigh he parted a school of fish as it swam towards him with a cry of 'hello, your highness,' and began brushing debris away with his shark-like tail.

The current hit him like a ton of bricks, his tail was already sore from swimming so far, and his arms ached from scraping against the splintered boards of a sunken ship Kairi had forced him to follow her through. The waves forced him up against the jagged rocks, the harsh edges digging into and scratching at his pale back. Riku began to claw his way forward on the rocks, but the current kept crashing into and shoving him backward. Without Kairi there to guide him, he didn't know a safe pathway through this pass, and the crunch of his head connecting with a rock resounded throughout the empty space.

'So, this is why father forbade Kairi from coming here," a strange thought, he assumed, when one is about to die by the insistent crashing this pathway had to offer.

Through his exhaustion and the rocks knocking against his skull his vision blurred, the edges of his world going black. As his consciousness left, the edges of the world meshing together and becoming indistinguishable, a blur of blue swam towards him. He felt as something thin latched tight to his waist, a tugging sensation just above his naval; he let out a shaky breath as this unseen force pulled him away from what would have surely been his early grave.

"Hang on, okay?" a soft voice assured him. Kairi? No, this voice wasn't her tinkling one, and it was indisputably male, "rough currents, huh? Oh, please stay awake," the voice shook with nerves, "please don't die."

'I didn't hit my head that hard,' Riku wished he could say, 'I'm fine, don't be scared," a voice so childlike and filled with blissful ignorance should never shake with anything but laughter. Strands of something silky brushed against his face and tickled his nose; his chin rested on what appeared to be the shoulder of a body much smaller than his own. He tried to open his eyes, but when he did a wave of dizziness fell over him like a blanket of snow on the mainland.

"Ugh, I'll take you back to Namin_é_, she can help," his shoulders drooped, "I hope…"

Well, that was reassuring, what with Riku still teetering on the edge of consciousness and all. His back scraped against something hard and he groaned, his eyes rolling back into his skull.

"Oops, I'm sorry," as Riku was pulled away his head lulled backward, a calloused hand gripped tight to his side in a grasp that was almost painful, "what were you doing in the rapids by the way? You have to know the path to get through there, and even then you have to be a strong swimmer… not that you aren't a strong swimmer! There are lots of tired soldiers that get caught up in the current; hey, you must be a soldier! I can tell by the royal crest around your neck… though I've never seen a soldier with one that looked so pretty…"

The boy babbled on and Riku felt at peace with the vibrations of his chest; the beat of his heart, his steady breathing, the hum of his words. Riku's thoughts turned to the palace, despite what this boy thought he clearly wasn't going to die, what would his father think when he returned? He had left the front lines, completely drawn in by Kairi's promise of adventure. Though, wasn't it justified? He had worked until his tail ached and his arms felt like lead weights at his side; his exhaustion had nearly gotten him killed after all.

No, he had lost Kairi, and that was enough for his father to punish him. The princess of a neighboring kingdom, his childhood friend, and his betrothed was out in the sea without an escort, and that would get him in to trouble. He had to find Kairi; that way they could make up some story about going on a date, and not wanting anyone to interrupt them. It was an unspoken rule between the two that they play along with their parents obsessions, though they both silently agreed that marriage was entirely out of the question. Try as their parents might, love was not something that would blossom between the two… or, at least not the love they had been counting on. While they both loved each other very dearly, there was no romantic undertone to their relationship; that much had been established when they had kissed at the age of thirteen and decided that it wouldn't ever happen again.

Riku's teeth clenched as his mind wandered to his overbearing father, wondering what his punishment would be this time.

"Woah, you sure are tense. I wonder what you're thinking about. It must be making you stressed, huh? You should relax before you hurt yourself," that voice again. Something about it soothed Riku, his taut muscles going slack, and another bout of drowsiness came over him.

Riku tried to focus on that kind voice, but the world around him began to slip away. He'd been fighting to stay awake as he had been instructed, but he was being lulled to sleep by the sound of the boy's voice. His tail wrapped around another of its own will, their fins brushed and the light current that brushed his face as they swam slowed.

"Hey, if you do that it'll take forever to… oh, well, as long as you won't die or anything I suppose you can rest…"

With those words he let the world slip away.


End file.
